Abstracts Language, Literature, and Linguistic

A socio-political and historical perspective of linguistic prescriptivism in relation to the African languages of southern Africa

by Russell H; Mokapela, Sebolelo; Nkomo, Dion Kaschula

Major languages in southern Africa evolved from oral to the written mode within particular socio-cultural and political milieu from the eighteenth century. In the postcolonial period, some African countries established regulatory bodies, while others maintained those established during the colonial period to oversee the development and use of African languages. The quest for uniformity manifested itself in a prescriptive approach to the orthographies and grammars of southern African languages. This chapter looks at how prescriptivism emerged from those socio-political and historical processes to become a feature in the development and use of African languages in southern Africa.